Defense Ministry ready to coordinate document on contacts with Pentagon

Oct 07 2015

Interfax

Interfax

The Russian Defense Ministry is ready to coordinate a document on contacts with the Pentagon in the fight against ISIЫ in Syria, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has said.

The Russian Defense Ministry is ready to coordinate a document on contacts with the Pentagon in the fight against ISIS in Syria, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has said.

"We have held a videoconference with our American colleagues and have begun to discuss ways of our joint work, security in that territory. We have finalized the consideration of the document submitted by the Pentagon and we will say today that we are ready to coordinate this document and to start working under it," Shoigu said at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Oct. 7.

"We gathered military attaches [on Tuesday] and offered them, all our colleagues involved in this work one way or another, to tell us about their targets, actually, if they have such targets, so that we could even more efficiently work against ISIS units and camps," the Russian defense minister said.

"We are expecting the colleagues to give an answer today. Hopefully, they will tell us about the targets they already have. I believe that this work should be adjusted further and carried on in a systemic manner; no matter what, we will hardly be able to accomplish this mission without each other's support. This is proven by earlier events; our colleagues have been doing this work for a year now but, unfortunately, they have not had any tangible results as of yet," Shoigu said.

Putin said he had asked representatives of the U.S.-led anti-terrorist coalition to provide coordinates of terrorists operating in Syria so that Russia could destroy them.

"If they say they have a better knowledge of the situation because they have been working in the territory of Syria for a year, by the way, they have been doing that illegally and I have told them about that. But if they are working and have a better knowledge of the situation then let them give us the targets they have uncovered in that period and we will work against such," the Russian president said.

Speaking of further operations of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria, Putin said he "was expecting them to be synchronized with the ground operations of the Syrian army."

"Offensive operations of the Syrian army will be efficiently backing the actions of our Aerospace Forces," Putin said.